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Daily industrial news and top headlines for plant and maintenance managers

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Endeavour blasted off on NASA's next-to-last shuttle flight, thundering through clouds into orbit Monday morning as the mission commander's wounded wife, Gabrielle Giffords, watched along with an exhilarated crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
NASA is winding down its 30-year-old shuttle program before embarking on something new.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hewlett-Packard Co. is scheduled to report its fiscal second-quarter results on Wednesday after the market closes. The results cover the quarter ended April 30.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Any further declines in HP's services and personal computer divisions, both of which had unexpected revenue shortfalls last quarter.

Selco Products Company (Reno, NV) is offering a line of Immersion Thermostats to meet requirements for challenging applications where the temperature control device must me submerged in water or other liquids. Typical applications include pressure washer equipment, industrial steam cleaners, industrial water heaters, and more.

The BL20 Economy gateways from TURCK (Minneapolis, MN) provides a flexible in-the-cabinet system for distributed I/O with EtherNet/IP and Modbus TCP, and can be paired with a broad range of I/O slices to suit virtually any application. In addition, RFID can be incorporated into any distributed I/O product with the necessary RFID-S slices.

National Bulk Equipment, Inc. (NBE; Holland, MI) is offering its bulk bag unloader system, which is designed for use in highly contaminant-sensitive process areas that handle bulk materials known to generate combustible dusts. The 9.525mm polycarbonate encasement surrounds the unloader to prevent dusts from becoming airborne and entering the work zone during bag conditioning.

Autoquip Corporation (Guthrie, OK) has introduced a new website to showcase its lines of lift tables, VRCs, dock, and custom lifts, along with product specifications, manuals, case studies, and FAQs. The new site was designed to address customer needs with custom lift experience and capability, according to the company.

This last weekend's graduates at UC Berkeley were witness to a unique event at their commencement thanks to Austin Whitney and a robotic exoskeleton. Whitney was paralyzed in a 2007 car accident, but was determined to walk across the stage and recieve his diploma.
Enter Berkeley engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni, who designed a bespoke exoskeleton for Whitney.

by Robert Holleyman in Intellectual Property
Intellectual property rights — copyrights, patents and trademarks — provide the legal framework necessary for creative enterprise like commercial software development to flourish. But it is widely assumed that most people view IP rights as business and legal concepts with little relevance to their daily lives.

Samuel Beckett’s modern drama about two hobos, Vladimir and Estragon, monotonously passing time while waiting for their friend Godot (who never shows during the entire play) reminds me of another kind of meaningless waiting that I often observe in organizations.

YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) — The U.S. is developing aircraft carrier-based drones that could provide a crucial edge as it tries to counter China's military rise.
American officials have been tightlipped about where the unmanned armed planes might be used, but a top Navy officer has told The Associated Press that some would likely be deployed in Asia.

BEIJING (AP) — Toxic bean sprouts, filthy cooking oil, drug-tainted pork: The relentless headlines in Chinese media have churned up queasy feelings for months about the dangers lurking in the nation's dinner bowls.
The stories are grim reading but show China's usually strict censors are allowing the press more latitude to help it monitor a food industry long riddled with problems.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A major football helmet manufacturer has sharply increased its Washington lobbying this year, responding to a congressional push to come up with new safety standards for children's football helmets.
Riddell, which makes helmets for both kids and adults and is the official helmet of the NFL, spent $80,000 in the first quarter of this year lobbying on new legislation that could lead to federal regulation of youth football helmets.

SHANGHAI (AP) — The boss of a battery plant in eastern China was detained Monday after more than 300 people, including 99 children, were sickened by lead pollution, the government says.
Fifty-three people were hospitalized after tests found that 332 residents in Deqing, near a factory making lead-acid motorcycle batteries, had elevated levels of lead in their blood, the local government said in a statement.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scrambling for a quick fix for its cash-strapped unit Saab, Spyker Cars NV on Monday signed a distribution deal with the Chinese company Pang Da, but postponed plans to start production in China to avoid regulatory issues.
The Netherlands-based Spyker Cars said Pang Da will inject euro65 million ($92 million) for a 24 percent stake in Spyker, and the two will form a 50/50 joint venture for the distribution of Saab cars in China.

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Pensacola Beach's famously white sands — coated in thick crude last year after the nation's worst offshore oil spill — are back to their original color, and tourist arrivals outnumber what they were before BP PLC's blown-out well spewed 172 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The prospects for an overhaul of Missouri's economic incentive programs waned Friday as lawmakers neared the end of the last day of their 2011 session.
Although negotiations continued, House and Senate members said they had yet to settle their differences on a package that would end or reduce many of the state's existing incentives for businesses, developers and residents while creating new tax breaks to attract international cargo shippers to the St.

WASHINGTON (AP) — LG Electronics Inc. said Friday that it will contest a finding that U.S. rivals such as Whirlpool Corp. are being hurt by imports of bottom-mount refrigerators from South Korea and Mexico.
The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Friday that there is a "reasonable indication" that the U.

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tyco International Ltd. rose in Friday trading after a news report said a potential buyer is speaking to private equity firms about partnering on bid for Tyco.
THE SPARK: According to the New York Post, France-based Schneider Electric has contacted buyout firms about putting together a bid that could offer $30 billion or more for Tyco, which owns ADT security and a series of other fire protection and industrial companies.

ROCHESTER, New York (AP) — Shares of Eastman Kodak Co. shot higher Friday after a judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission rejected Apple Inc.'s digital-camera patent claims against the photography pioneer.
Kodak's technology does not infringe on Apple's patent rights, and one of the two patents in dispute is invalid, Robert Rogers Jr.